


You remind me of the Babe

by Rioghna



Series: Daddy's Little Girl !verse [7]
Category: Labyrinth (1986), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Daddy's little girl 'verse, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:06:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5715406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rioghna/pseuds/Rioghna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jareth is missing some goblins and finds them in an unexpected place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You remind me of the Babe

You remind me of the babe

Something was wrong in the palace at the center of the Goblin City. Jareth, the Goblin King leaned back on his throne and tried to figure out exactly what it was. He looked around. There was a motley collection of goblins in the throne room. Okay, that was normal enough. A couple were chasing a chicken about, not that they ever caught them, but all parties seemed to find it amusing. A few were sleeping around the room. There was the usual debris (goblins made terrible housekeepers, unless he kept after them), but that was also normal. Then it struck him. There were fewer goblins about than usual. Not that he ever kept a good count on how many there were. He could, but he didn't usually bother. This time though, well, he had noticed, and it wasn't the first time. Things had been pretty quiet lately. People just didn't wish away children like they used to. He'd felt the occasional tingle, but it never went far enough. So why were the goblins missing?

He reached out and pulled a crystal out of thin air. "Show me where my goblins are," he said. Images flashed through the ball...in the yard, down in the kitchens (though they cooked as well as they cleaned, if it weren't for magic and being immortal, he probably would have been accidentally poisoned centuries ago), running around the city, on patrol, two in the Bog of Eternal Stench after an unfortunate incident with a cannon ball in the hallway, in a clean castle...wait, what? He paused the image and looked again. Walls, tapestries, a couple of shiny suits of armor. Jareth knew for a fact it was a place he had never been. It could be that they had gone to attempt to encourage someone who was thinking of wishing away a child, but that would show initiative, also not a natural trait among his motley crew. That left two main possibilities, either someone was trying to steal his goblins, or they were being lured away, and he wasn't going to have either of them. "We will see about this," he said aloud as he rose from his throne.

"Your Highness?" One of the goblins rose cautiously. It was always best to be careful with his unpredictable ruler.

"Go back to what you were doing. I have an errand," he said, calling his coat to him and pulling it on before transforming into a snowy owl and sailing out the window. The goblin just shrugged and went back to his place.

Jareth felt the realms fading away as he followed the magic trail to the place he had seen in the crystal. Suddenly he came out of the void outside a castle set high in the mountains, near a lake. The Enchanted Forest, interesting. He rarely had children wished away from here. Still, there in front of him was the castle and he could feel magic emanating from it. Something about it looked familiar and yet not. He flipped back through his memories trying to place it, but at his age, well, that wasn't as easy as it should be. "Well, I suppose I shall see what I can see."

The castle was warded against strange magic, which was no surprise, but it didn't look as if it was preparing for a fight either. Jareth wondered who was there and what any powerful wizard would want a few goblins for, and why they would be willing to go up against him for them. He flew down and transformed before walking up to the door and knocking.

 

Rumplestiltskin had spent the morning in his laboratory and was just getting ready to go down to tea with his wife when he felt it, strange magic. His first response was to make certain he knew where his family was. Belle was in the kitchen, cooking, Rose was in her room, playing, she had been doing that a lot lately, but he was almost certain it was a stage she was going through, and Bae was in the library, reading a book. All accounted for then, he changed into his more formal working clothes, pulled on his dragonhide coat and went down to find out what it was all about.

The new sorcerer knocked on the door, so at least it was someone polite. With a wave of his hand the door opened and the imp was looking at a tall...well, he wasn't human, of that the sorcerer was certain. He liked the coat however. There was also something vaguely familiar about him, something possibly from those past memories that were and were not his.

"Dark One," the man addressed him with an elegant nod of his spiky blondish head. "It has been...centuries. I see you've...changed." _Certainly you have more fashion sense than your last host, or was it the one before?_ He'd never much cared for dealing with the cursed socerer but this one seemed...different.

"A good three hundred years ago. I'm sorry, but my memory isn't what it once was..." _Who are you trying to impress?_  he thought. _Hose? Seriously. Nice coat though_.

"Jareth, King of the Goblins, but I'd have thought you were aware of that. Where are they?" he asked conversationally, though there was a quiet menace in his eye, a look the sorcerer knew well, having perfected that look long ago.

For the first time, Rumplestiltskin was slightly wrong footed, and that was not a feeling he particularly cared for. "Where are what?" he asked.

"Rumple, you should have told me we had guests," Belle said as she came out into the foyer to see what was holding up her husband.

"My lady," Jareth said, reaching for her hand with a smile that the Dark One cared for not one little bit.

"My _wife_ , the Lady Belle," Rumplestiltskin said, with particular emphasis. That caused a raised eyebrow on the part of the King of the Goblins.

"Welcome to the Dark Castle, please come into the hall," Belle suggested. Rumplestiltskin was not all that keen, but his knowledge of the other man was starting to filter back to him and in a stand up magical fight, they were probably evenly matched, which meant that for the moment, playing nice was probably the best course. "I'll go fetch another tea cup."

"Since when is the Dark One married?" the elder man asked as he followed him into the other room.

"Since none of your business, dearie. What is it you want?  I doubt very much that this is a social call. What exactly _is_ it you are looking for?"

"My goblins, as you know very well," he said irritability, throwing himself gracefully into the chair offered and sitting sideways in it, in what seemed to Rumplestiltskin a very undignified position, but then who knew what qualified as good manners in the Goblin court.

"Goblins? What in the seven realms would _I_ want with _Goblins_?" the sorcerer asked with a look of distaste.

"I was wondering the same thing myself, but I saw it in my crystal, and followed the magic trace here."

"Think you need to get a new crystal, that one has clearly gone off. There are no goblins here, my wife wouldn't have them in the house. They are filthy."

"Of that, I am well aware, however, there is nothing wrong with my magic and this is where it led me. You cannot tell me that you would allow another user of magic here in your domain." There was something smug on the other man (well, man might not be the right word, exactly, but he couldn't actually remember what he was and besides, he was hardly one to judge).

"No, of course no..." Rumplestiltskin stopped dead in the middle of his word. Goblins, magic...

"You know something," the Goblin King accused, sitting up just as Belle reentered with another cup.

"I suspect something," the sorcerer said. "It's not the same thing. However...Belle, have you seen Rose since luncheon?"

"No, not really. She said she wanted to have a tea party in her room with her friends. I assumed that..."

"Rose?" the Goblin King questioned. This entire situation had been far from what he was expecting, but, despite a little posturing, everything seemed pleasant enough. Much more interesting at least.

"Our daughter," Belle explained. "But what is all this about? What exactly are you doing here? Rumplestiltskin, what is going on?"

"I think perhaps we need to ask Rosie that," he suggested. "Shall we?" The sorcerer offered an arm to his wife, and the Goblin King rose from his chair to follow, towering over the other two, but he seemed willing enough to go along. From what he could remember from his previous self, they had dealings once, something about a deal that someone had tried to double cross both of them, by setting them against each other. It had not ended well for the man who tried it, but they had no personal disputes. He led the way up the central stairs to his daughter's rooms.

The door to the playroom was open, and he could hear her voice coming from inside, which was no surprise. It was the other voices that surprised him. "Would you like some more tea?" she asked sweetly.

"More tea, more tea." Yes, she wasn't alone. Rumple closed his eyes briefly, and prayed to the Gods for strength. This was a huge breach of manners, at the very least, and as he recalled, the Goblin King also dealt with unwanted children. What if Rose had done something, violated some rule of magic in the Goblin realm that he knew nothing of? Belle was looking at him a bit concerned as well. Regardless of what his daughter had done, he vowed, he would take care of it. But the Goblin King was just looking bemused.

Rumplestiltskin reached out and opened the door. "Rosie, love, what are you up to?" he said.

"Hey Papa, would you like to join me and my friends for a tea party?" The child seemed completely unaware of anything wrong.

The goblins on the other hand, having seen their ruler standing behind the imp and his wife (and realising that they had no chance of hiding), had risen to their feet and were bowing low enough that they were scraping the floor with their noses. There were seven goblins in all, two of them were wearing bits of clothing that seemed to have been taken from the girl's toys, while one had on a ladies sun bonnet and another had donned what might have been a flower bouquet. "Your Majesty," the tallest and smartest of them said. "We just...um..."

"You just..." he encouraged, looking at them sharply, waving for them to continue. But he turned and met Rumplestiltskin and his wife's eyes and smirked just a little. But the goblin was no more forthcoming. "You just decided to slip off for a tea party in another realm without telling me? Or did the girl call?"

"No...not exactly, sort of..." the spokesgoblin said confusedly.

"I accidentally wished away my bear," Rose confessed, not wanting her new friend to be in trouble. She stood up and curtseyed to the Goblin King the way her mother had taught her, and then spoke up . "I'm not really 'apose to do magic, not without Papa's super vision, but I wanted my bear back and they brought it back to me and we decided to be friends. I'm sorry," she said, looking up at the Goblin King with slightly frightened big blue eyes. "Did I do wrong, Papa?" Seeing the look on the monarch's face, he tried not to smile. That was his daughter all over.

"Lady Rose," Jareth said, very seriously, going down on one knee so he could meet the child's eyes. "I cannot speak for your rules, but you have not violated any of mine. These, however," he pointed to the goblins looking at one another and trying to pretend they were somewhere else. "They are not allowed to travel to other realms without permission, and as such..." He was trying to be harsh, he really was, but it was very hard in the face of the little girl with the golden scales and the big blue eyes.

"Perhaps we should discuss this," Belle suggested. "Would you care to join us for tea downstairs while your...er...subjects," she suggested struggling for a word to describe the creatures, "remain here with Rose?"

"Excellent idea."

 

Sometime later, adequately fortified with tea, sandwiches and cakes that he didn't have to prepare for himself, the Goblin King was feeling positively benevolent towards his wayward goblins. In addition, he and Rumplestiltskin (who he found entirely more personable than the previous iteration he had dealt with, with the added bonus that the couple were able to carry on a much more intelligent conversation than all of his goblins put together). They were deep into a discussion of certain magical fungi that grew only in his kingdom when Rose came to see them, the goblins hiding behind her skirts.

"Your Majesty, they have something they want to say to you. Go on," she said, shooing them from behind her.

The goblins lined up with a little direction from Rose. "Er...we are sorry that we...that we left the castle without permission or telling you where we were going. That was..." They looked at Rose and she mouthed a word to them, apparently coaching them through. "That was naughty of us and we apologise."

The Goblin King looked a bit taken aback. "I told them it was naughty for them to go play without permission and worry you. When you do something wrong, you are aposed to 'pologise as soon as possible," Rose said looking a great deal like her mother in that moment. "Now _you_ are supposed to say 'poligy accepted and tell them not to do it again," she told the king earnestly. Rumplestiltskin hid his laughter behind his hand while Belle tried not to be appalled at her daughter's boldness.

"Oh, I think they know not to do it again," Jareth said with a smile that was about half warning. "However, I believe your father and I just might be doing some business, so perhaps arrangements can be made after they have served their punishment," he told them, giving them a level look. He had just the task in mind, actually. Talking to the imp had made him realise exactly how bored he had become, not to mention some of his old interests that had fallen away in recent years. The little girl just nodded happily, curtsied and went back to her room. The goblins didn't need any encouragement for that. "Lovely girl, no chance of wishing her away is there? She has quite a way with goblins."

"Not at all," her mother reassured her.

"Pity," he said, with a shrug. "Should you ever change your mind..."

**Author's Note:**

> So, at the beginning of the week, the world lost an icon. David Bowie's music has been a part of my life literally as long as I can remember, and gotten me through so much, and I will freely admit, I fell apart. Someone on the RumBelle Facebook group I'm on said there should be a crossover with Labyrinth, specifically, Rumple meeting Jareth, and I felt the need to write something. It was either tooth rotting fluff or ripping angst (I haven't ruled the second out yet). I settled on fluff because the mental picture of little Rose having a tea party with goblins in hats just lightened my day. 
> 
> So here it is, the best a poor writer such as myself can do...To David Bowie, Hail the traveler, and may the stars welcome him home.


End file.
